Performance test exceeds expectations

Trade News

Pullach, 29 November 2011 – The world's northernmost natural gas liquefaction plant Hammerfest LNG on the island Melkøya, 800 km north of the Arctic Circle near Hammerfest in Norway, passed the performance test in August, exceeding the expectations. The highly efficient plant produces now with a capacity of up to 109 percent of the design capacity. Overall Statoil ASA and Linde AG make a positive assessment of the project.

After the revision shutdown 2011 the performance test has now been completed. The results show that all performance guarantees for example related to product quality, capacity, and energy consumption are clearly met. In particular energy consumption for the liquefaction service was reduced significantly below the guarantee values. Hence, the Hammerfest LNG base load plant now is also officially the worldwide most energy efficient LNG base load plant.

The plant is a unique technology project of the European natural gas and EPC industry. The LNG base load plant with a capacity of 4.3 million tons LNG per year is based on a liquefaction process, jointly developed by Statoil and Linde, that is optimised for the arctic conditions, the so called Mixed Fluid Cascade (MFC®). With the successful commercialisation of this novel process and Linde's complementary process solutions for warm climate zones, for the first time a proven European LNG technology is available for the growing LNG market. With its established solutions for small and mid-scale LNG plants and its future-oriented developments of floating LNG plants, Linde has access to a comprehensive portfolio of LNG technologies.

Hammerfest LNG combines multiple innovative, environment-friendly and pioneering elements. Due to limited plot space available and difficult construction conditions the plant was designed very compact and modular. The heart of the plant is the central process module with a weight of 35,000 tons. This largest ever built LNG plant module was pre-fabricated in a Spanish yard as a floating module and has been transported 2,700 nautical miles to the island Melkøya. Moreover, Hammerfest LNG uses for the first time an efficient, environment-friendly direct sea water cooling system which is suitable for arctic wheather conditions. Trend-setting features also include the complete separation of CO2 from the process gas and its reinjection into a reservoir under the seabed as well as the realisation of a flareless plant operation. With the objective to enhance plant availability for the first time in a world scale LNG plant all main compressors are electrically driven.
Therefore Statoil and Linde make a positive assessment of the for both companies strategically important pioneer project.

Dr Aldo Belloni, Member of the Executive Board of Linde AG, draws his attention to the future of the LNG business: "With the successful development and realisation of this LNG technology in a world-scale plant Linde has established its universally applicable, European technology alternative in the LNG market. Melkøya is for us from both a technical and a strategic view a valuable reference project."

About The Linde Group

The Linde Group is a world-leading gases and engineering company with around 50,000 employees working in more than 100 countries worldwide. In the 2010 financial year, it achieved sales of EUR 12.868 bn. The strategy of The Linde Group is geared towards sustainable earnings-based growth and focuses on the expansion of its international business with forward-looking products and services. Linde acts responsibly towards its shareholders, business partners, employees, society and the environment – in every one of its business areas, regions and locations across the globe. Linde is committed to technologies and products that unite the goals of customer value and sustainable development.